Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Dec 31:2023:4243312.
doi: 10.1155/2023/4243312. eCollection 2023.

Inpatient Q Fever Frequency Is on the Rise

Mohamad Alhoda Mohamad Alahmad  1 , Kassem A Hammoud  2
Affiliations

Inpatient Q Fever Frequency Is on the Rise

Mohamad Alhoda Mohamad Alahmad et al. Can J Infect Dis Med Microbiol. .

Abstract

Background: Q fever is a zoonotic bacterial infection caused by Coxiella burnetii that is reportable in the USA. This infection is often asymptomatic; acute infection usually manifests as a self-limited febrile illness, hepatitis, or pneumonia. Chronic infection (usually infective endocarditis) often affects patients with valvulopathy or immunosuppression. Herein, we study the inpatient frequency of Q fever in the United States.

Methods: We used a nationwide inpatient sample (NIS) for our retrospective cohort study to include hospitalizations with a diagnosis of Q fever between 2010 and 2019. Survey procedures were applied to accommodate for complex sampling design of NIS. Chi-square and least-square means were used for categorical and continuous variables, respectively. Jonckheere-Terpstra test was used to study the trends over the years. SAS 9.4 was used for data mining and analysis.

Results: A total of 2,685 hospitalizations with a diagnosis of Q fever were included, among which 451 (17%) cases had a concurrent diagnosis of infective endocarditis. The mean age of patients was 58 years, and less than a third was female. Our analysis demonstrated that infective endocarditis was the most common cardiac complication associated with Q fever and was associated with increased inpatient mortality (p value <0.001). There is a trend of an increase in cases of inpatient Q fever with or without endocarditis over the years (p value <0.05). Q fever cases were more common across the Pacific and the South Atlantic divisions.

Conclusion: Physicians should be aware of an increasing trend of hospitalized patients with Q fever and the significant association with infective endocarditis. Further studies are needed.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Frequency of inpatient Q fever.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Frequency of inpatient Q fever by division in 2010−2019. Data source: HCUP-US.ahrq.gov, Nationwide Inpatient Sample, 2010−2019. 1, New England; 2, Middle Atlantic; 3, East North Central; 4, West North Central; 5, South Atlantic; 6, East South Central; 7, West South Central; 8, Mountain; 9, Pacific.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Inpatient Q fever trend with and without IE.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Rodríguez-Fernández M., Espíndola Gómez R., Trigo-Rodríguez M., et al. High incidence of asymptomatic phase I IgG seroconversion after an acute Q fever episode: implications for chronic Q fever diagnosis. Clinical Infectious Diseases . 2022;74(12):2122–2128. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciab843. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Q fever. Q fever. https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/q-fever/
    1. Diagnosis and Management of Q Fever— United States. Recommendations from CDC and the Q fever working group. 2013. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr6203a1.htm . - PubMed
    1. Cdc. Q fever stats. https://www.cdc.gov/qfever/stats/index.html .
    1. Hcup. NIS description of data elements. https://hcup-us.ahrq.gov/db/nation/nis/nisdde.jsp .

LinkOut - more resources